(Possibly) breaking the law in China
Hey good people, Since (most of) y'all are techies and are better at this than me, I thought I might share this with you. Am in Beijing China and using this laptop that has never been used in China before. When I typed in 'google' on the address bar, it gave me results using Baidu! Now, I gather that Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are blocked in China. Sadly, those are also some of my favourite sites for work and play reasons. So am staying at this '5-star' hotel and when I couldn't get on any of the sites from the wi-fi on PC or mobile, I started questioning its 5-star-ness. It only occurred to me later that this state choke-hold on info is for real here. Anyway, I digress. Technically, you're not supposed to be able to get on these sites whichever way, right? Wrong. Because I can. I have Snaptu on my phone, its an app that does Twitter but also FB etc and I've set it to remember my details so I dont log in every time. And I can do both FB & Twitter through it. How is that? Isnt it supposed to be impossible? Any ideas? Larry out -- Twitter: @LarryMadowo Facebook.com/LarryMadowo
hi @larry, what you need is a proxy server on the net thats not been discovered by those people. One that comes to mind is an ancient one that i used to use ages back japanweb.info. im sure however if you google there are gazillions out there willing to offer you means of bypassing the blockages. ikikataa just ask any skunk with a vps to give install squid and let you use it to access fb. :-) all the best. On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 9:33 AM, Larry Madowo <larrymads@gmail.com> wrote:
Hey good people,
Since (most of) y'all are techies and are better at this than me, I thought I might share this with you. Am in Beijing China and using this laptop that has never been used in China before. When I typed in 'google' on the address bar, it gave me results using Baidu!
Now, I gather that Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are blocked in China. Sadly, those are also some of my favourite sites for work and play reasons. So am staying at this '5-star' hotel and when I couldn't get on any of the sites from the wi-fi on PC or mobile, I started questioning its 5-star-ness. It only occurred to me later that this state choke-hold on info is for real here.
Anyway, I digress. Technically, you're not supposed to be able to get on these sites whichever way, right? Wrong. Because I can. I have Snaptu on my phone, its an app that does Twitter but also FB etc and I've set it to remember my details so I dont log in every time.
And I can do both FB & Twitter through it. How is that? Isnt it supposed to be impossible?
Any ideas?
Larry out
-- Twitter: @LarryMadowo Facebook.com/LarryMadowo
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There are several ways you can access these sites. One is using a VPN connection to your organisation(which I used while there) The other is using a web based proxy, which is what I suspect snaptu uses. During my stay there, google had redirected www.google.cn to www.google.cn.hk (hong kong)....i guess now the govt stepped in and redirected google.* to baidu.... ./bernard On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 4:33 PM, Larry Madowo <larrymads@gmail.com> wrote:
Hey good people,
Since (most of) y'all are techies and are better at this than me, I thought I might share this with you. Am in Beijing China and using this laptop that has never been used in China before. When I typed in 'google' on the address bar, it gave me results using Baidu!
Now, I gather that Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are blocked in China. Sadly, those are also some of my favourite sites for work and play reasons. So am staying at this '5-star' hotel and when I couldn't get on any of the sites from the wi-fi on PC or mobile, I started questioning its 5-star-ness. It only occurred to me later that this state choke-hold on info is for real here.
Anyway, I digress. Technically, you're not supposed to be able to get on these sites whichever way, right? Wrong. Because I can. I have Snaptu on my phone, its an app that does Twitter but also FB etc and I've set it to remember my details so I dont log in every time.
And I can do both FB & Twitter through it. How is that? Isnt it supposed to be impossible?
Any ideas?
Larry out
-- Twitter: @LarryMadowo Facebook.com/LarryMadowo
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http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AopdHkqSqKL-dHlQVTMxU1VBdU1BSWJxdy1f... ------------ Skunkworks Rules http://my.co.ke/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=94 ------------ Other services @ http://my.co.ke
Larry, Snaptu uses API's when talking to Facebook and Twitter, this means that when you update ur status e.t.c, the request goes to Snaptu.com which is not blocked, snaptu on the other hand talks to the social networks via API to update your status.. sort of like using a proxy server.. Interesting loophole though ./chris On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 4:42 PM, Bernard Mwagiru <bmwagiru@gmail.com> wrote:
There are several ways you can access these sites. One is using a VPN connection to your organisation(which I used while there) The other is using a web based proxy, which is what I suspect snaptu uses.
During my stay there, google had redirected www.google.cn to www.google.cn.hk (hong kong)....i guess now the govt stepped in and redirected google.* to baidu....
./bernard
On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 4:33 PM, Larry Madowo <larrymads@gmail.com> wrote:
Hey good people,
Since (most of) y'all are techies and are better at this than me, I thought I might share this with you. Am in Beijing China and using this laptop that has never been used in China before. When I typed in 'google' on the address bar, it gave me results using Baidu!
Now, I gather that Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are blocked in China. Sadly, those are also some of my favourite sites for work and play reasons. So am staying at this '5-star' hotel and when I couldn't get on any of the sites from the wi-fi on PC or mobile, I started questioning its 5-star-ness. It only occurred to me later that this state choke-hold on info is for real here.
Anyway, I digress. Technically, you're not supposed to be able to get on these sites whichever way, right? Wrong. Because I can. I have Snaptu on my phone, its an app that does Twitter but also FB etc and I've set it to remember my details so I dont log in every time.
And I can do both FB & Twitter through it. How is that? Isnt it supposed to be impossible?
Any ideas?
Larry out
-- Twitter: @LarryMadowo Facebook.com/LarryMadowo
_______________________________________________ Skunkworks mailing list Skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/skunkworks ------------ Skunkworks Server donations spreadsheet
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AopdHkqSqKL-dHlQVTMxU1VBdU1BSWJxdy1f... ------------ Skunkworks Rules http://my.co.ke/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=94 ------------ Other services @ http://my.co.ke
_______________________________________________ Skunkworks mailing list Skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/skunkworks ------------ Skunkworks Server donations spreadsheet http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AopdHkqSqKL-dHlQVTMxU1VBdU1BSWJxdy1f... ------------ Skunkworks Rules http://my.co.ke/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=94 ------------ Other services @ http://my.co.ke
participants (4)
-
[ Brainiac ] -
Bernard Mwagiru -
Chris Mwirigi -
Larry Madowo